- I think it can be so overwhelming, just the sheer number of schools. When you open up a guidebook, and the guidebook is more
than 1,000 pages long, you just wonder, where do you even start? But I think students who keep an open mind can do really well in the process because there's so many
wonderful institutions out there, and probably schools that you might never have even heard of. So if you're willing to go
outside of your comfort zone, if you're willing to go to a school that you maybe haven't heard of, or in a part of the country that you're not really familiar with, you can really open up many,
many doors for yourself. - I think the process starts-- let's start with academics. A student thinking a little bit about what they've done in the
last three or four years with their academics, the
classes they've taken, which classes they've really liked. Is it because of the teacher? Is it because of the subject? Is it because of the way it was taught? Really starting to think about what they may wanna study in college, and to think about the way
that that material's delivered. Was it in a lecture format? Did they do more group work? Did they do discussion-based
conversations? And really thinking about what are the ways that they learn best. Ultimately for me, when
I'm talking with students, especially low-income students that are looking at this process with, you know, not a lot of
help in the process, really thinking about how to
put yourself in a position to be really successful in college. Thinking through those sorts of things. Thinking through, a little
bit about community. What kind of community
are you gonna be in? Who's in that community? Where are they from? Are they all from the local area, are they from a national
pool, and international pool? If you're an underrepresented student, an international student,
those sorts of things, is there a population on that campus? If that's important to you, you can look at those sorts of factors. Extracurricular activities. The things you're doing
now in high school, are they things you wanna continue to do? So maybe you're a flute player, and you wanna continue to play in college, although you think you may
wanna be a Biology major. Is there a school where you
can still be in the band, in the symphony, but be a Biology major. - Ask questions, anything
that comes to your mind. Ask the question, there's no question that somebody else hasn't thought about, or that you should feel, "Oh
that's a stupid question, "I won't ask them that." - Sometimes I think students
become stuck on one school, when in fact there is
no one perfect school out there for them. In fact, there are
many, many, many schools that will be a good fit. It's more about figuring out what's the personality of a school, and how does it mesh with your personality in what it is that you hope to achieve? Keeping that open mind so that
you will have many options, and you'll ultimately end up at a place where you'll be really excited to be, and where you will be able to
have incredible experiences that will really broaden your perspective.